Under pressure from Gandhian Anna Hazare, the Government has decided to introduce the Citizen's Right to Grievance Redress Bill in the forthcoming Winter Session of Parliament. A major step to check corruption, the Bill will provide for delivery of public services and goods in a timebound manner and entail penalties for failure to do so.
The Bill, separate from the Lokpal Bill, will also cover the liabilities of public servants in case of default.
“The Bill has been prepared and put up in the public domain for suggestions from the stakeholders,“ Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V Narayanasamy told mediapersons on Wednesday.
On questions whether Hazare's anti-corruption campaign had influenced the formulation of the Bill, Narayanasamy said the Congress party had mentioned enactment of a grievance redressal mechanism in its election manifesto.
“The Group of Ministers on tackling corruption, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, was set up in January 2011. The GoM had been discussing this Bill,“ Narayanasamy said. “Success has many fathers, failure will be an orphan,“ Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh snapped when asked on Team Anna taking credit for the measure.
As per the key recommendations in the Draft Bill, there would be a Citizen’s Charter for which a protocol would be put in place. The Bill could be enacted as a Central legislation under item number 8 of the Concurrent List which deals with “actionable wrongs”.
The draft proposes to cover Central schemes and Central Government Departments, and provide a platform to the States to make this a grievance redressal mechanism for their schemes and departments. The draft envisages the institution of a Information and Facilitation
Centre in all public authorities to ensure that citizens could be facilitated and grievances are systematically recorded and tracked using telephone, sms, web and the like.
The first level redress proposes to be within the concerned department. This would be done through a grievance redress officer in each department. The second level redress or appeal would be at the level of head of the department of the public authority. The draft suggests that State Grievance Commissions should be set up as second level appellate authorities.
The draft makes it compul
sory for every Ministry and department to act within 15 days on complaints from the public, failing which an appeal could be filed with a higher authority. This authority will have to dispose of the appeal within 30 days.
It also seeks to impose a penalty on the grievance redressal officer if any complaint is not addressed in a stipulated time frame. The law will set up a mechanism similar to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Ramesh said.
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Under the proposed law, every public authority will have to designate a Grievance Redress Officer (GRO) right from the block level up to the Central Government. The GRO will receive and act on grievances from the public on services that they are entitled to under any law or government policy, Narayanasamy said.
The GRO would be empowered to identify the reason for the grievance, fix responsibility on a defaulting office or officer, and recommend penalty or punishment. If not satisfied, applicants would have the right to appeal against action taken by the GRO. At the state and central levels, the law proposes to establish public grievance commissions, to act as quasi-judicial bodies.
The proposed grievance redressal structure is very similar to the RTI Act, which has created public information officers in every government department to provide information on request within 30 days.
“The citizen’s charter will have to be defined by the authorities at various levels, including panchayats, municipalities, states and the centre. For every authority, there will be a Grievance Redress Officer, ” Narayanasamy said He said the Bill will be put up on
the website of the department of personnel for 21 days for people to give their comments.The proposed legislation would be another landmark in the “rights-based approach” followed by the UPA-II, Ramesh said referring to the RTI and Right to Education laws.
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